baxxmans

I just finished my BA Thesis yesterday, so here I go again. Now its time to start blogging again and party hard. Weekend, football, drinking and doing nothing else, thats my plan now. Hope they will accept my BA Thesis and so I can go on with my studies. Btw, i heard that in the USA every eighth postman has a BA degree, so perfectly i can at least become a postman. Any greencards there?

Football this weekend seems to become interesting. I especially hope that "Wolfsburg" will lose on Schalke, so they have to leave the premier legaue - i just can't stand them.

And my last point today: It's becoming summer, so I need to checkout some trips in order to see the world and their beauty. Any suggestions? I thought maybe i try eastern europe, its cheaper and nice. What do you think?

well, these days I am mostly thinking of Japan and the horrible situation in the regions that have been affected by the tsunami and the nuclear power plant. Most people here just focus on the last fact and don't realize that Japan was hit by and earthquake before.

Well, to be honest, here in Germany live goes on and I also care about football. So I thought about a way, how to combine that. I found one. Some time ago I saw a video from fans of Sendai, a Japan city, that is destroyed now. They had one of the best football supporters of the world (really). Additionally they have the same colors as my team and their melody (do you know the song? do you know my team?) was adopted by my team too (and theri supporters).

To show respect and give hope I proudly present you this video, best wishes to the Japanese people!

are you bored of all the mainstream movies, that have always the same story and lame actors? Then I got a tip for you. Why not watch "unlike u" a german documentation about kids in the capital berlin that write trains.

Sounds stupid? Well, maybe it is, but why not try it? There are some funny stories, not about trainwriting, but also about life in general. At least the movie is "self produced", so don't expect special effects or stuff, but it has a good atmosphere and entertainted me well. Check it out!

I am back. Had a terrible weekend, not just the earthquake in Japan, also my football team lost and I had no more beer Saturday night. Anyway, things have to go on and so here I go and present you a nice little tool which i found at the Mac App Store and I think its amazing, you should really check it out:

My new Mac App Blue Planet is now available on the Mac App Store for just $0.99. Blue Planet is a small utility that replaces your desktop picture with a beautiful dynamic map of the Earth. As the day progresses and the sun illuminates different portions of the Earth, the map changes in real-time so you always see where it is day and where night.

You can choose from four gorgeous day images of the Earth, and the night view is even more beautiful in my opinion. The map can be centered on your current location or set to follow the sun. Visit the Blue Planet website for more screenshots and a comprehensive list of features.

If you decide to buy Blue Planet, I’d be very interested in your feedback.

How does it work?

Internally, the map consists of three CALayer objects. The daylight image is the bottommost layer. Above it lies the image of the Earth at night. The area that is currently illuminated by the sun is stored in a CGPathRef. I then create a CAShapeLayer with this path and use the shape layer to mask the night image layer, thereby revealing the day image layer underneath. A Core Image blur filter provides the soft transition from between day and night.
I arrange two of these layer stacks side by side so that I can move from any point on the equator to anywhere else with a smooth animation.
The path that represents the sun-illuminated area of the Earth is recalculated roughly every minute or so. This means that the CPU utilization of Blue Planet is effectively zero.

you mabye heard about it. A heavy earthquake hit Japan and a tsunami rolls all over the world. Normally I wanted to post something funny today for the weekend, but when I see the pictures from Japan I am not in the mood for fun anymore.

So I use this post today to send all my best whishes to all people who are affected by this disaster! Hope you are not injured and the nuclear plants will not explode.

its already thursday and do you all know what that means? Yes, its time to plan the weekend, refill your alcohol supplies and get ready to party hard. I thought after a few serious posts, its time to have some fun again. So I will tell you today a recipe of an easy and cheap "cocktail" that sounds disgusting but I know you will like that drink. Please be aware, the following recipe contains alcohol, so it is only for persons who are allowed to drink alcohol!

So, what do we need? We need:
- a bottle of Vodka (I prefer a cheap brand, like "Smirnoff")
- a liter of normal milk
- about five packages of vanilla sugar
- a big empty water bottle or can

Take the milk and fill it in the empty bottle, add the vodka and the vanilla sugar. Close the bottle and shake it. But it to the freezer for half an hour - an hour, however you like it and enjoy. Yes, it is that simple and at first it sound a bit disgusting, but you will realize that it just tastes like an milk shake. But be careful, you won't taste the alcohol. I think it is the cheap and easy version of a "White Russian" and it is perfect for festivals and stuff like that, when you are not able to take 20 liter of beer with you.

Funny fact: In Germany that drink is known as "Mäusepisse" what could be translated as mice urine. Do you have a name for it in your country? Have you tried it and liked it?

I am still not working on my BA Thesis at the moment as I have to wait for an important book. But instead I am reading through all the fantastic blogs on blogger.com and check the latest news.

Additionally I watch TV, because as a cyclist I am very interested in the Race "Paris - Nice" which is one of the first great European races in the year. It takes place now in France and I watch it on Eurosport. Like the name already says, they cycle around 1000 km, starting in the cold Paris and drive through nearly whole France to the warm Mediterranean where the beautiful village Nice lies in eight days. Because of this the race is called "Race to the Spring". Its really interesting how the landscape now looks, very grey and brown, and what it is like in July when the "Tour de France" takes place.

So I am happy of being entertainted and hope for some warmer days outside, so that I can start my own training this year. And when I hopefully finished my BA Thesis, its time for the great races of the year, like "Giro d'Italia", "The Tour de France", "The Vuelta" in Spain and also the "Tour of California" which was much fun to watch last year, because they had a live internet stream.

today, as I am just not continuing my BA Thesis, a few news i read about the upcoming iPhone 5. First one is the idea of a complete new design, or more precise, a rollback in design, back to iPhone 3 or 3S but with an alu backside. Looks even a bit thinner and would be similar to the iPad2. Antenna-gate will be fixed for that, because the antenna here is behind the apple, like it is in common iMacs.

Second idea is a iPhone version seen in Hongkong, that has the new A5 processor and 64 GB of memory. The design is the same that it is now and in my opinion that seems to be more presumable that apple just holds the cycle and will change the design only every two years.

Okay folks,
Sunday is over, I am happy. But unfortunately I watched a movie yesterday in order to relax. Unfortunately? Yes, because I watches a Uwe Boll high quality production, named "Darfur" that deals with the civil war in the African desert. Islamic Terrorists called "Janjaweed" kill, rape and torture the civil African population.

Okay, the topic is important, especially because nobody seems to be interested in that conflict despite there are much more people killed than in the Gaza strip. But well, Uwe Boll who has also made "Rampage" (that has at least an interesting end), is not famous for doing so well. At least he isn't in Germany.

He uses a shakin' camera, that obviously suggests that everything happens in danger and in wildlife. A few Western journalists try to help ("Burden of the white man") a village of African people that is attacked by Janjaweed fighters. The have just a small gun and well, they fail. Then you see the cruelty of the massacre en détail and some stupid dialogues and thats it.

Originally a good idea, but a stupid plot without tension or personality. 4 stars out of 10 for brutality.

yesterdays football was very nice. My team won and I was very drunk. Thats wy todays hangover really makes me sick. I just don't like sundays. For me they are the beginning of the next week, I am restless and cannot relax because I am already dealin with mondays tasks.

And on the other hand I can't really work because I have 1) a hangover 2) think that I need to relax and get fit for mondays tasks. So, you see it really is endless...

I think I am gonna watch a movie and will write a review here on the blog. Or do you have another idea? Do you like sundays?